Nov 15, 2009

On the credible testimonies regarding the mosque incident I


This is a follow-up post to the "The Goldstone Report Forgery" post on this blog regarding the
written report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict and in it the chapter »The attack on the al-Maqadmah mosque, 3 January 2009«.

Time Index 34:18 of the public hearing video regarding the mosque case made in the written
Goldstone report for the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.

Goldstone:
"On what date did you start the compressed the the system of the compressed prayer?"

Sheikh al-Salawi:
"Combining prayers started when the incursion started the land incursion because before that there was some air bombardment there was no real fear but when land incursion started and the tanks were approaching and that's why we started combining sunset and [not audible ]"

Goldstone:
"Sir sir the days of the incident, the 3rd of January was ww was that the first day you had compressed prayers or were there previous days also the same procedure?"

Sheikh al-Salawi:
"We started combining before that date eh that has started several days. But it was intermittant. It was intermittant contigent on the degree of fear. Whenever we expected another assault we started combining for noon and late afternoon and for unset and evening. And on that day combined sunset and evening prayers."

The Israeli ground incursion started on the 3rd of January 2009. So the witness on the one hand implicitly claims that there had not been any combined prayers before that day because before the ground incursion "there was no real fear". On the other hand he explicitly claims that the prayers had been combined "for several days" before that incident.

How do the mission members handle this obvious contradiction?

"824. On the evening of 3 January 2009, between 5 and 6 p.m., a large number of people had gathered in the mosque for evening prayers. Witnesses indicate that between 200 and 300 men had gathered on the first floor.459 A number of women had also congregated in the basement at that time. Witnesses explained that in time of fear or emergency it was the tradition to combine sunset and evening prayers.460 In addition, the Mission heard that, while some time normally elapses between the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer and the prayers beginning, at this time it was the practice to begin prayers almost immediately."

"459 Sheikh al-Salawi, interviewed on 3 June 2009 and 4 July 2009."

They don't care and resolve it.